More news about Marc Andreessen making venture investments this morning after the launch of his new $300 million fund, Andreessen Horowitz: he is leading a round of financing for TPM Media, better known as the TalkingPointsMemo blog.
TPM founder Josh Marshall confirmed the pending investment today by phone. The round is small, between $500k and $1 million. Andreessen is leading the round and a number of other angel investors are participating as well.
This comes just a little over a month after Andreessen invested in another blog network, Alley Insider. He clearly likes the format. Both the Alley Insider and Talking Points Memo investments are being done personally by Andreessen, not through the new venture fund.
This is the first outside funding for TPM, which was founded by Marshall in 2000 after the presidential election recounts. In the past Marshall has funded TPM via advertising and three reader fundraising events, each of which raised “tens of thousands of dollars,” he says. The company is profitable and has 11 full time employees.
The TPM network of blogs has 1.5 million unique monthly visitors and 15 million page views according to Google Analytics, says Marshall.
The site has been highly praised, particularly for their 2007 coverage of the firing of eight United States attorneys. That coverage got TPM a George Polk Award for excellent journalism.
That’s awesome. They are a model of crowdsourced research too. Congrats to those guys. Awesome to hear too that they have 11 full timers with 1.5m uniques on a political site. That’s impressive.
Nice! Hey Marc I have 3 million monthly UV and a more profitable blog network, call me!
:: makes phone hand gesture ::
Is this the only news out there today? Seriously, if I read one more story about Andreessen I’m going to puke. Let’s move on, please.
I’m so glad we never even started listening to our readers.
Where did you develop your reasoning skills?
Barber College?
You are so right Mike. Now get back to work on that Cap’n Crunchpad so we have it before Arbor day!
What the hell is a blog and how do I invest in one? Can I use my Charles Schwab account?
:: makes wtf? hand gesture::
Mike, if Marc Andreessen’s such a great investor, how come he passed on Facebook when he had a chance (when Zuck moved to Cali)?
no idea. but as a board member he managed to get facebook stock for free.
No one’s perfect?
Keep in mind that in all these years he has had only one startup go under.
I guess this is the second wave of the blogging revolution, this time it’s about taking on the ‘big boys’ from traditional media (you know where they print letters on processed trees and ship them in trucks to your door…)
Exciting.
It seems like he wants to own the future New York Times. However, I wonder about how much a blog site can scale up.
TPM can handle the scaling. It’s a fragmented industry but TPM will play a big part in the future of news delivery.
Andreessen has figured this out and wanted a slice. Smart move in my opinion.
I read TPM every few days and am usually impressed with their content…I occasionally overlap and cover similar stories.
Business Insider (the parent property for SAI) does 7 million page views per month according to Blodget.
I think Andreessen sees the future of news delivery and he’s getting a stake in it early.
Not unrelated: here is the updated answer I gave to a commenter who questioned the staying power of The Daily Bail:
I wanted to add some more detail to my answer as I get your question all the time. We have morphed quickly into the only site with daily (almost daily) updates of financial and political comedy.
Nutshelled, we cover the Federal Reserve, political capture, Wall Street and Washington corruption, financial comedy, CNBC, the national debt and deficit issues, and the bailouts.
I think we will safely have enough to cover as long as I am interested in continuing…
565,000 uniques in June (just our 5th month of existence) with almost ZERO publicity tells a pretty decent story I think.
Here are 2 recent posts to give you an idea of our content outside of the bailouts:
Why Dylan Ratigan Left CNBC: The Audio Leakage (hilarious 45 second rant from Ratigan)
http://dailybail.com/home/why-…..akage.html
And Peter Schiff: ‘Of Course We’re Not Going To Pay Back The Chinese.’
http://dailybail.com/home/pete…..hines.html
People have found us and keep coming back AND sharing our stories. And I run the site entirely alone…no interns, no guest writers, nada. Just me and my own personal brand of financial pain.
So you can make it without PR, it just takes 5 moths of 18 hour days, relentless focus on providing good content, and an intense desire to succeed.
Thanks for your question.
I check TPM at least once a day. Congrats go out to the TPM bloggers on the funding, you have a great blog there.
true ..! i wanna go there now .
Has Andreessen ever tried to buy a piece of TechCrunch?
Josh is a great guy – I’m very happy for TPM Media and think they do some wonderful reporting and commentary.
TPM is one of the best news blogs out there. They’re only going to grow, as TPM recently announced they are adding more editorial positions in NYC and DC.
Am I the only one who things the guy should have a shorter last name.. we cannot let that last name continue.. with msn and twitter killing our ability to spell..how will anyone spell that last name in 10 years..
My vote is to use that money to hire a dedicated weekend editor
Seriously, though, congrats to the TPM crew, they do good work.
I love TPM and Josh, also Marc seems to be a mensch and a smart one, so no offense, but is investing in an essentially solid, established, tried-and-true business, with about 0% risk and little innovation really the best way to promote a new dynamic entrepreneurial economy?
Shouldn’t people with capital to spare be investing in something new and risky, way ahead of the curve, shaping the direction of a new American expansion we all desperately need?
That’s great. Now Josh can hire more Ivy League-only Silver Spoons who back the Settler Movement and MoDo’s Plagiarism without question.
Just what America needs, the next batch of Dana Milbanks and Skull & Bonesmen warming up in the TPM bullpen courtesy of Andreessen Horowitz.
Oh, just for giggles, how much money has Andreessen Horowitz poured into the West Bank, Gaza, AIPAC, AEI, Heritage, WINEP, etc.? Care to research that, Arrington, or do you prefer that I embarrass you?
Do you always get that many trolls in your comments?
Does anybody know how to get hold of Andreessen? I have a revolutionary way of sharing and viewing information on the Internet. It will launch in 30 days and there is a window of investment opportunity open. I can demonstrate the technology over the phone with any person sitting at their computer. I am willing to let him add our company to his success stories. Put us together and create your own opportunity.
Richie@Tarfoo.com
Tarfoo.com- I found your website on Google. It seemed so similar to Delicious.com. Even the logo was very identical to Delicious. Except that your squares are green and black. The website desgin, and overall look just seemed very poor as if it was a cut and paste format from software that offer you how to create a social networking site for $99. Come on!!!
Hi Gregory:
Sorry, I didnt see your point of view. In just a few days, you will multiple screen technology and the ability to send that “view” via email. It has never been done and I gurantee that you will be using it one day. As far as the website goes, Be patient.
Thanks
Richie
Ah Richie My man this has been done before but never caught on. Several companies over the years have attempted this. Viewista being one that is still around. And there service is free. The email piece is nothing special it’s a matter of copying and pasting a link.
Windows 7 also has a multiple view feature built in.
A few companies
viewista their corporate edition launches Jan with office support, CAD, CRM Did a great peice on these guys check them out at Networld Interop
howsimple
google chrome
rockmelt is amazing